mess

Meanings

Noun

  • A disagreeable mixture or confusion of things; hence, a situation resulting from blundering or from misunderstanding.
  • A large quantity or number.
  • Excrement.
  • A person in a state of (especially emotional) turmoil or disarray; an emotional wreck.
  • Mass; a church service.
  • A quantity of food set on a table at one time; provision of food for a person or party for one meal; also, the food given to an animal at one time.
  • A number of persons who eat together, and for whom food is prepared in common, especially military personnel who eat at the same table.
  • A building or room in which mess is eaten.
  • A set of four .
  • The milk given by a cow at one milking.
  • A group of iguanas.

Verb

Origin

  • Perhaps a corruption of Middle English mesh, compare muss, or derived from Etymology 2 "mixed foods, as for animals".
  • From Middle English mes, partly from Old English mēse, mēose; and partly from Old French mes, Late Latin missum, from mittō. See mission, and compare Mass.

Modern English dictionary

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